Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820-1844 Hardcover – January 1, 2005
- Print length500 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBrigham Young University
- Publication dateJanuary 1, 2005
- ISBN-100842526072
- ISBN-13978-0842526074
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
What do customers buy after viewing this item?
- Most purchased | Highest rated | Lowest Pricein this set of products
Investigating the Book of Mormon WitnessesRichard L. AndersonPaperback - This item:
Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820-1844Erick B. Welch John W.;CarlsonHardcover
Product details
- Publisher : Brigham Young University (January 1, 2005)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 500 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0842526072
- ISBN-13 : 978-0842526074
- Item Weight : 2.05 pounds
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,313,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
In scope, this collection can only be compared with Dan Vogel's five volume collection of "Early Mormon Documents," published between 1996 and 2003. However, unlike Vogel's comprehensive collection, Welch focuses almost exclusively upon firsthand and contemporaneous sources. This is refreshing, since the chief problem with Vogel's collection is that it casts its nets so wide as to include much material of dubious historical value. I have found Vogel's collection to be very helpful, but have often lamented that much by way of hearsay and polemics has been presented side by side with firsthand contemporaneous documents of great historical value. To use a legal analogy, Welch's collection seems closer to what might be "admissible" evidence in a court of law, whereas Vogel's collection seeks to bring in a vast quantity of pure hearsay and speculation from "witnesses" far removed from the actual events of Church history. After all, how much weight should we accord to a hearsay statement only first recorded forty, fifty or sixty years after the actual events?
Welch has not only provided faithful transcriptions of the actual documents themselves, but insightful essays written on each of the six chief topics.
While these essays are interesting, it is the documents themselves which are the precious jewels of this book.
I agree with Welch's insightful comment that "a generation from now, few people will care how various historians in our day have interpreted the past. . . But the original documents convey testimonies that will always be of the utmost interest." (From the Introduction).
With these collections by Vogel and now Welch, in hand, the day should be long past in studies of Church history, when any reader possessed of reasonable intelligence should put much further credence in the rarified theories of professional historians. Few academic writers have ever been honest enough to "proclaim their malefactions" - their personal bias - in their writing, pretending, instead that their work is "scientific." What many historical writers - both apologists and critics - fail to admit is that, "A fact is a fact", until you begin to string two or more facts together. Then it becomes a work of the imagination and not a science.
I have a few additional comments, criticisms and disappointments regarding this collection, as follows:
1. The best commentary in this set, by far, is that which precedes the collection of documents relating to the first vision. The excellent essay by Dean Jesse, and especially the one by James B. Allen and Welch himself, far exceed the others in clarity. Joseph Smith's ten accounts of the first vision, contained in thirteen documents, are then presented chronologically. Welch and Allen use the very helpful tool of providing charts summarizing the contents of each of the ten accounts.
2. Welch's collection of documents on the coming forth of the Book of Mormon is of almost equal clarity and quality to the collection on the first vision.
3. While the collection of priesthood restoration documents edited by Brian Q. Cannon is well presented, Cannon's commentary itself leaves something to be desired. I felt as if his writing lacks the clarity found in the previous essays of Jesse, Allen and Welch.
4. Most disappointing in this collection is the essay and collection by Alexander L. Baugh. In fact, there really isn't a collection of documents here, but only chronology and summary of seventy-six "visionary experiences" received by the Prophet during his lifetime. Why weren't the documents themselves published here? The chronology prepared by Baugh is helpful, but I want to see the documents, not merely Baugh's rather pedestrian essay.
5. The documents and essay regarding "Succession in the Presidency" are also disappointing, in that they focus solely upon the "mantle of the prophet" experience of 1844, and not upon other key events, such as the "rolling off of the keys" upon the Twelve or the additional authority conferred upon the Twelve in conjunction with the restoration of temple keys and the activities of the "quorum of the anointed" in Nauvoo from 1842 to 1844, etc.
6. Even with its several problems and disappointments, after a first reading I tend to agree with John Welch's initial suggestion that this "may be one of the most important LDS Church history books you will ever read."
Excellent book well worthy of the highest recommendation!
There are a total of six sections in this book covering the first vision, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, the restoration of the priesthood, various visions, the restoration of the temple keys, and the mantle of the prophet Joseph being passed to Brigham Young. Each section begins with an essay summarizing the various accounts, which I found useful. The highlights of each section are the individual accounts of the events.
This book gave me a much better understanding of the details of these major events. There is nothing like seeing things from many different perspectives in both time and by individual to give one a big picture view of what really happened. As a believing Mormon, it has strengthened my testimony of the hand of God in the latter day restoration. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in LDS church history; this is an essential volume.


